Ellen Wehle is a college tutor and the poetry editor at AGNI. New work will be appearing in US Catholic, The New Republic, The Iowa Review, Southern Humanities Review, FIELD, Natural Bridge, and Christianity and Literature. Ellen lives in Winthrop, MA with her husband and two stepchildren.
Buddha said, Be a lamp unto yourself.
In every storefront I pass, the telltale flicker.
Smudged pentimento of my face… some study from another
day, when the master raised his brush to more ambition.
Meanwhile the industry of sunlight grinds out June.
Blackflies as cantata, the thousand seed pods whirling.
Observed all afternoon by the great clock
that hovers like an eye above town, I need to know
I happened. This went down.
